Today is the day of the instant friendship. Through whatever Social Media application you choose, the amount of friends you can compile seems the new objective: real friendships aren’t the goal anymore.

You may read the updates, comment, and otherwise connect. This opportunity to connect is great. The connections are sometimes productive. Mostly, they are shallow.

The majority of the great memories I have with my friends have nothing to do with an update on Facebook or a sly quip on Twitter. Memories are made in the physical moments you spend together. The experiences: both good and bad.

I work closely with my two staff pastors. Much of the information we share and the projects we work on we could accomplish via conference calls or some other meeting medium.

Who hasn’t tuned in to the Penn State scandal? It’s horrible to hear the evidence stacking up against the alleged defendant. Hearing of a child being sexually abused is tantamount to feeling sick and angry at the same time.

In much of the counseling I have done, often, the culprit behind today’s actions is yesterday’s evil. Many adults are living in shame and worse because of sexual molestation in their formative years.

Melinda and I are parents of 2 beautiful young girls. They are our pride and joy. They are also our responsibility. It wasn’t even something we had to discuss: we have always erred on the side of caution.

I was in and out of Fred Meyers in about 3 minutes. I have a circuit that I could walk in my sleep. I have done this same routine for years every Monday. I don’t know how long exactly I have been eating turkey chili on Mondays – but it’s been years now.

It’s a tradition that I very much enjoy.

It is so simple that even I can cook it. It’s very inexpensive. Whatever is leftover can sit in the fridge for days and somehow it even tastes better the second time around.

One of my best friends introduced me to this chili recipe years ago. This is the same friend that introduced me to my wife. I need to send him a check. I wonder what else he can introduce me to? Maybe I should call him.

Ruth 1:19-20 – So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

Naomi had followed her husband to a land called Moab. There they hoped to avoid the famine that had come to Bethlehem. Unfortunately, all they experienced were hard times and loss. Naomi lost her boys and her husband. Life had dealt her a bitter blow.

Naomi traveled back to Bethlehem with her daughter in law Ruth. As they approached the city, her old friends gathered at the gates to invite her in. She saw the crowds of well wishers and was overwhelmed with the story she was destined to tell.

She told them to call her Mara (bitter) instead of Naomi (pleasant). For she thought the Lord had dealt bitterly with her. She had gone through bitterness and now she allowed her circumstances to name her. She lost her identity in her trial. Thankfully, the name never stuck. Continue Reading…

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a mess? So deep in the mess you can’t turn around and get out, and to far from the end to see any future resolve? Those moments are very hard to navigate. Maybe you are in the middle of marriage trouble. Or perhaps you are so stuck in debt that your life seems to be unraveling before your eyes. You’re stuck and you don’t know how to get out.

It’s during these “middle moments” that you should turn to the middle verse of the Bible. Let it saturate every fiber of your being.

Psalm 118:8 – It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Continue Reading…

This is a guest post by my father, Mitchell Glover. He pastors a thriving church in Sterling, AK: if you’d like to listen to him preach – you can do so here.

On a family campout last summer, we sat around the fire looking up through the trees trying to see the stars. The limbs obscured the night sky so that the stars weren’t visible. My oldest granddaughter, Sierra said, “It’s too dark to see the stars.”

Sometimes it gets too dark to see what you are looking for. This is especially true when faith is tested. We are not alone when we face that dilemma. Some prominent Bible characters have dealt with that difficulty.

Abraham was promised his descendants would become a great nation in Genesis 12. Three chapters later he is still childless and looking for the promise. He built an altar and offered sacrifice to God. He chased vultures away from his sacrifice, then became very sleepy, and endured a deep darkness. When the sun went down, a fire appeared on the sacrifice. Then God reassured him that his succeeding generations would be as the stars in the sky. Years of faithfulness followed as Abraham continued to walk with God. Eventually the promise was fulfilled both literally and spiritually. Continue Reading…

My parents have always modeled before my brothers and I what a successful godly marriage looks like. They have been hitched for 37 years; and are ready for another 37. I both admire them and try to assimilate their advice into my own marriage. Instead of guessing what their strategy was, I asked them to give me some byte-sized reasons why their marriage has been so great.

These 13 bytes are relevant concepts, and simple keys, that unlock the mysteries of marriage. These principles could be the frame work for a book called Marriage Bytes. This book would bring focus and clarity to the most important of human relationships.

The book may never materialize, but here are their marriage bytes for better or for worse.

I confess that I preach from Genesis more than I probably should. There isn’t any book like Genesis. It speaks to every aspect of my life and on many different levels. As a pastor, this book is paramount to perfecting my perspective.

The first chapter is my favorite. The creation story can be viewed from so many angles, each bringing out a new facet and application. For instance, the fact that there were plants growing before the sun was shining is a powerful truth in and of itself. We know that flora and fauna require the rays of the Sun to grow. Yet God proved to us doubters that conditions do not matter to Him. He can produce growth even without the Sun. This same God can surely bring revival in our church – even if the conditions say otherwise. This gives me great courage.

No talk of Genesis would be complete without mentioning Noah’s ark. Noah had to keep representatives of every animal alive in his ship for one year and seventeen days. Ultimately, these animals would repopulate the new earth God was creating; however, for a season, his job was to just keep them alive. Sometimes God takes churches through seasons where the pastor’s job is to just keep the people who are already in the ship healthy. Soon the season will shift, the cover will be taken off, and multiplication and reproduction will explode. Until then, just keep them alive. Seasons of maintenance aren’t glamorous, but they do produce plenty of spiritual growth in the pastor’s life.Continue Reading…

Luke 11:27 – And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.

Luke 11:28 – But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

Many times we view what somebody has and overlook how they obtained it. The manifested material gifting is what we term as a blessing. Indeed – it is.

The woman in this scripture passage was praising the person that was picked to bring Jesus to our planet. She proclaimed Mary as blessed because of the miraculous birth and subsequent development of her baby. Mary did what no woman before or since will ever do. She participated in prophecy being fulfilled through her own body. She gave birth to the Messiah. Nobody else will ever have a testimony like Mary’s.

Jesus had a different perspective of what blessing is.He stated that those hear the word of God and keep it are the blessed ones. Continue Reading…